Figure 1. Arytenoid disc kinematics associated with underwater sound production in the ex vivo larynx of Xenopus laevis.(A) Xenopus call while submerged. A ventral view of a reproductively active, X. laevis male (nuptial pads in grey on the inner surface of the forearms), underwater (blue waves); larynx in red and more dorsal brain in blue. This view of the larynx is schematic (i.e. the dorsal rather than the ventral side is illustrated) in order to correspond to the actual isolated larynx in (B). On the left, an oscillogram (sound intensity vs time) of a single, biphasic call that includes a fast and slow trill. Each vertical line indicates a sound pulse; ~60 pulses/s for fast trill and ~30 pulses/s for slow trill. (B) Dorsal aspect of an isolated X. laevis larynx, a cricoid box of hyaline cartilage flanked by muscles. Each effective contraction/relaxation of these paired laryngeal muscles produces a single sound pulse. In the preparation illustrated, sound pulses are evoked by electrical stimulation of both laryngeal nerves via suction electrodes. Inset: Each muscle contraction produces a transient increase in tension on the arytenoid discs (ad) located within the arytenoid cartilages (ac) via the tendons (t). Globule cells (gc) secrete a mucopolysaccharide onto the medial surfaces of the arytenoid discs (Yager, 1992). Carbon microspheres (e.g. M1 and M2) placed on the surface of the larynx track muscle and cartilage positions. (C) Still photo of arytenoid cartilage motion filmed at 10,000 fps and illustrated at 2 ms intervals. Nerve stimulation occurs in top left image. (D) Upper panel: Higher magnification images of each bead in B) during filming at 44,000 fps. Lower panel: The small motion of each bead (cyan, left; blue, right) during 40 consecutive stimulations at 40 Hz. (E) Sound (top panel, corrected for time of flight) and the position, velocity and acceleration of the two beads (color coded as in D) during a single pulse. Nerve stimulation occurs at t = 0. (F) Kinematic data for gap width (w) in C) in relation to sound onset. While the precise onset (red line) is hard to determine due to acoustic noise, sound production follows peak velocity (green) or acceleration (yellow). (G) The timing of sound onset (red), gap peak acceleration (yellow) and peak velocity (green) during 40 consecutive clicks for one larynx relative to nerve stimulation. (H) Sound onset relative to gap peak acceleration (yellow) and peak velocity (green) during 40 consecutive clicks for the larynx in G).
Image published in: Kwong-Brown U et al. (2019)
© 2019, Kwong-Brown et al. This image is reproduced with permission of the journal and the copyright holder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license
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